Debating the death penalty

May 5, 1992

Regarding the editorial, "California and the Death Penalty," April 20: Capital punishment in and of itself will not restore law and order to our beleaguered society. Only a complete overhaul of our justice system with a review of our own moral codes can do that.

We must decide what is moral. A person who has murdered, who has shown complete disregard for the sanctity of life, who has denied the right to live to an innocent, clearly does not deserve a higher consideration. Through his actions he has waived his own right to life, along with any right to "moral" consideration in his behalf. He has taken the life of another without warrant.

A legal system that confines a murderer for life at society's expense (the same society that the murderer has violated) or returns that murderer to society, rehabilitated or not, is a morally corrupt society. We are denying justice by allowing a murderer to take away someone else's right to life and then not suffer the same deprivation himself. Gregory A. Weisler, Ft. Bragg, N.C.